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Purcell Ode 

And Other Poems 



Purcell Ode 

And Other Poems 



By 

Robert Bridges 



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Chicago \S^^tlJi-B^°* 

Way £sf Williams 
1896 



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Copyright 
By Way & Williams 

mdcccxcvi 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 



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CONTENTS 



Page 

Ode to Music 29 

The Fair Brass 42 

November 45 

The South Wind 49 

Winter Nightfall 53 



PREFACE 



The words of the Ode as here given differ 
slightly from those which appeared with Dr. 
Parry's Cantata, sung at the Leeds Festival and 
at the Purcell Commemoration in London last 
year. 

Since the poem was never perfected as a mu- 
sical ode, — and I was not in every particular 
responsible for it, — I have tried to make it more 
presentable to readers, and in so doing have dis- 
regarded somewhat its original intention. But 
it must still ask indulgence, because it still be- 
trays the liberties and restrictions which seemed 
to me proper in an attempt to meet the require- 
ments of modern music. 

It is a current idea that, by adopting a sort 
of declamatory treatment, it is possible to give 



X P r e f a c e 

to almost any poem a satisfactory musical set- 
ting ; ^ whence it would follow that a non-literary 
form is a needless extravagance. From this gen- 
eral condemnation I wish to defend my poem, 
or rather my judgment, for I do not intend to 
discuss or defend my poem in detail, nor to try 
to explain what I hoped to accomplish when I 
engaged in the work ; it is still further from my 
intention that anything which I shall say should 
be taken as applying to the music with which my 
ode was, far beyond its deserts, honored and 
beautified. But I am concerned in combating 
the general proposition that modern music, by 
virtue of a declamatory method, is able satisfac- 
torily to interpret almost any kind of good poetry. 
Such questions are generally left to the mu- 
sician, and it should not be unwelcome to hear 
what may be said on the literary side. I shall 
therefore state what appear to me to be impedi- 

1 For example, there is a passage in Dr. Parry's recent 
work, " The Art of Music," which will illustrate what I 
mean. It is in the chapter on Modern Tendencies. See 
especially, page 311. 



P r e f a c e xi 

ments in the way of this announced happy mar- 
riage of music and poetry, and enumerate some 
of the difficulties which, it seems to me, must 
especially beset the musician who would attempt 
to interpret pure literature by musical declamation. 

First, the repetitions in music and poetry are 
incompatible. Though some simple forms de- 
pendent on repetition are common to both, yet 
the general laws are in the two arts contraries. 
In poetry repetition is avoided, in music it is 
looked for. A musical phrase has its force and 
significance increased by repetition, and is often 
in danger of losing its significance unless it be 
repeated ; whereas such a repetition in poetry is 
likely to endanger the whole effect of the original 
statement. And when reiterations that can be 
compared occur in both, then the second occur- 
rence will in music be generally the strongest, 
but in poetry the weakest; and the intensity of 
the repetitions goes on decreasing in music, and 
increasing for some time in poetry, till both be- 
come intolerable. 

Secondly, the difficulty which this difference 



xii P r e f a c e 

occasions is much increased by the method of 
declamatory exposition. Musical declamation 
must mean that the musical phrase is not chosen, 
as the earlier musicians might have chosen or 
invented it, chiefly for the sake of its own musi- 
cal beauty, in correspondence with the mood^ of 
the words, and merely fitting the syllables, but 
that it is invented also to follow the verbal phrase 
in correspondence with some notion of rhetorical 
utterance, or natural inflection of speech enforcing 
the sense, and in so far with lesser regard to its 

1 I omit the idea, the musical suggestion of which is a 
feat of genius, independent of style. The apprehension 
and exhibition of the mood is generally considered a sim- 
ple matter, but really it affords a wide field for subtlety 
of interpretation. I have, for the sake of simplicity, as- 
sumed that in their choral music the older musicians alto- 
gether disregarded the speech inflection of the phrase; 
but this is not quite true, and since, especially in such 
words as they usually set, the speech inflection is often 
uncertain and unimportant, or altogether a nonentity, 
and would very well correspond with almost any simple 
musical expression of the mood, this distinction between 
ancients and moderns cannot always be seen, or will 
appear only as a difference of degree. 



Preface xiii 

own purely musical value. Such a musical phrase 
will therefore, in proportion to its success, be 
more closely associated with the words, and 
cannot well be repeated unless the words are 
repeated, which the declamation forbids. 

Thirdly, when a declamatory musical move- 
ment is once started, the musician has very few 
means of bringing it to a conclusion. There is 
the method of repetition, which does not suit the 
Ode,^ and which on his own theory he is almost 
forbidden to use ; and there is the method of 
rising to a climax, which is perhaps the most 
usual device : but few poems can offer occasion 
for the recurrence of climax, and its employment 
would break up an ode into artificial sections, 
which the poet must repudiate. In pure music 
the musician has invented many beautiful devices, 
but in choral music he has not yet shown, so far 
as I know, any power to match the poet's lib- 

1 Throughout these remarks I speak chiefly of the Ode. 
It is necessary in so wide a subject to aim at a definite 
mark, and while an ode happens to be in question, the 
Ode is also the example which is taken by Dr. Parry in 
the passage to which I have referred the reader. 



xiv Preface 

erty in this respect, whose resources are as vari- 
ous as numerous, and are comparable to the 
freedom and caprices of a dancer, who can at 
any moment surprise by a gesture, and be still. 
Fourthly, the very rhythms of poetry and 
choral music are different in kind. The rhythms 
and balances of verse are unbarred, the rhythms 
of choral music are barred. Even the univer- 
sally recognized fitness of the interpretation of a 
common measure in verse by the corresponding 
common measure in music depends much more 
on the power and satisfying completeness of the 
musical form in itself than on any right relation 
which obtains between words and music under 
these conditions. Where the poetry has a more 
elaborated rhythm there are two extremes, be- 
tween which the musician's manner of setting 
must lie. One extreme, the musical, is that he 
should disregard the poetic rhythm for the sake 
of new musical ideas, which must of course add 
beauty and not do violence to the words : the 
other is that he should follow the elaborate po- 
etic rhythm as nearly as possible. The method 



P r e f a c e xv 

of declamation takes this latter extreme ; it for- 
bids musical independence, and prefers to iden- 
tify itself with the poetic rhythm, which in good 
poetry represents an ideal cadence of speech : 
but this interpretation is really a convention and 
a make-believe, and at best only an ingenious 
translation ; and though it may often be desir- 
able, and the occasion of true musical beauty, 
yet its exclusive use is an abnegation of musical 
spontaneity for the sake of a secondary, mediate 
form, conspicuously dependent on something ex- 
traneous, and giving prominence to ingenuity 
rather than to pure aesthetic beauty, so as to pro- 
voke criticism rather than unquestioning delight. 

Fifthly, the most beautiful effects in poetry are 
obtained by suggestion. A certain disposition 
of ideas in words produces a whole result quite 
out of proportion to the parts ; and if it is asked 
what music can do best, it is something in this 
same way of indefinite suggestion. Poetry is 
here the stronger, in that its suggestion is more 
definitely directed ; Music is the stronger in the 
greater force of the emotion raised. It would 



xvi P r e f a c e 

seem, therefore, that music could have no more 
fit and congenial task than to heighten the emo- 
tion of some great poetic beauty, the direction 
of which is supphed by the words. But if it 
seeks to do this by a method of declamation, it 
makes this double mistake. First it tries to en- 
force the poetic means, which it may be assumed 
are already on full strain, and in exact balance, 
and will not bear the least disturbance ; and 
secondly, it renounces its own highest power of 
stirring emotion, because that resides in pure 
musical beauty, and is dependent on its myste- 
rious quality : for one may say that its power is 
in proportion to its remoteness from common 
direct understanding, and that just so far as its 
sounds are understood to mean something defi- 
nite they lose their highest emotional power. 
It would follow from this that the best musical 
treatment of passages of great poetic beauty is 
not to declaim them, but, as it were, to woo 
them and court them and caress them, and deck 
them with fresh musical beauties, approaching 
them tenderly now on one side, now on another. 



Preface xvii 

and to keep a delicate reserve which shall leave 
their proper unity unmolested. 

Sixthly, if this is true of the highest poetic 
beauty, how will the declamatory method fare 
when it has to deal with the commonplaces and 
bare or even ugly words which are the weak- 
nesses and unkindnesses of language? Just 
when the poet must deplore that his material is 
not more musical, it cannot be the musician's 
triumph to insist on the defect. The ordinary 
monosyllabic exclamations are a sufficient ex- 
ample ; there is absolutely no declamatory ren- 
dering of these which is at all worthy of the 
emotion which they must often be employed to 
convey. What can be made of them by a purely 
musical treatment is seen in the long-drawn me- 
lodious sighs with which Carissimi or Purcell 
interpreted the Ohs and Ahs. 

Seventhly, this leads to the more general re- 
mark that the inflections of all speech are much 
more limited in character, number, and scope 
than those of the trained singing voice. Whence 
it comes that the imitations of speech in declam- 



xviii Preface 

atory music have a tendency to fall into a com- 
paratively small number of forms, which, even 
when most skilfully disguised, are easily recog- 
nized by an attentive ear, and soon weary with 
their sameness. The basis of declamatory music 
is in fact no broader than that of the old recitaiivo 
secco, and it would seem unreasonable to hope 
that any ingenuity in the superstructure can long 
disguise this, or save itself ultimately from the 
same condemnation. 

Eighthly, in consideration of the commonest diffi- 
culties which arise in setting to music words which 
have not been specially contrived for it, it appears 
that, compared with a more purely musical way, 
the declamatory method is absolutely at a disad- 
vantage. It can do nothing with parentheses or 
dependent clauses. The weak polysyllables, which 
have fit place in the diction and rhythm of verse, 
may be helped out by convention or by pure mu- 
sical distraction ; but declamation can only make 
them ugly. And as those for their weakness of 
sound, so other words unable for their sense to 
bear the stress of singing, — such as metaphorical 



P r e f a c e xlx 

words of slight meaning, which in poetry con- 
tribute but a part of themselves to the main idea, 
— these declamation would make ridiculous. Nor, 
on the other hand, with the words and phrases 
which are generally held most suitable for music is 
the declamatory method any richer or happier : 
these are the well-sounding words of broad mean- 
ing and their common collocations, which require 
a fresh imagination to revivify them. But the 
musician was always at his ease with these words, 
because his music was free to adorn them with 
any quantity of enrichment ; and this commanded 
the attention the more completely when the words 
required none. Now, if they are to be declaimed, 
they must return to their old prosaic nakedness ; 
and since the attention is to be called to them, 
they will be even worse off than ever. 

The above remarks are sufficient for my purpose ; 
but so many negations may provoke the reader 
to look for some positive indication of the writer's 
opinion as to what sort of words are best suited 
for music, and what sort of setting they should 
have. This question is far too wide to be treated 



XX P r e f a c e 

summarily ; and if it has not been given to me to 
assist in solving it practically, I cannot venture to 
meddle with it further. I had hoped, as a matter 
of fact, to contrive something ; but it seems to me 
that the musician's difficulty in advancing towards 
a solution is much increased by the necessity of 
pleasing large audiences. It is certain that the 
final appeal is not to the first hearing of any large 
audience in this country. What sort of music is 
really in request may be judged from the reper- 
tories of our military bands and the programmes 
of the Royal concerts. Even the highest class con- 
certs I have seen interlarded with unworthy items, 
which were rapturously received by the fashionable 
hearers who did not recognize the trap. 

"The man that hath no music in himself 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; " 

and these were the stratagems to obtain his 
spoils. 

It is possible enough that an audience may en- 
joy having commonplaces vociferated at them with 
orchestral accompaniment ; but this is nothing. 
To the musician the poet will say that he is sur- 



P r e f a c e xxi 

prised to find a term which is considered a 
reproach in poetry esteemed as the expression 
of the best means of its interpretation. To call 
a poem declamatory or rhetorical is to condemn 
it ; and music is naturally less rhetorical than 
speech ; so that in a declamatory interpretation 
of poetry Music would seem to abnegate its own 
excellence for the sake of a quality foreign to 
itself and repudiated by the art which it is seeking 
to heighten. 

He will not be satisfied by the assurance that 
the method will serve to introduce and explain 
poetry to some people who are generally indiffer- 
ent to it ; it will seem to him that the musician is 
laboring to introduce into pure vocal music the old 
dramatic crux, — that awkwardness from which 
it has, in its best forms, been beautifully free. Be- 
cause in the musical drama that must be sung 
which should be spoken, why try to make that 
seem to be spoken which should be sung? 



ANALYSIS OF ODE. 

This analysis is taken from the concert pro- 
gramme : — 

I. An invitation to Music to return to England : 
that is, in the sense that England should be again 
pre-eminent for music above other European nations, 
as she was in the sixteenth century. The three 
English graces are Liberty, Poetry, and Music. 

II. Music invited in the name of Liberty: the 
idea associated with the forest. 

III. Music invited in the name of Poetry: the 
idea of Poetry associated with pastoral scenes and 
husbandry. 

IV. The Sea introduced as the type of Love; 
isolating our patriotism, and making our bond with 
the rest of the world. 

V. The national intention gives way to wider 
human sympathies. Music here considered as the 
voice of Universal Love, calling and responding 
throughout the world. A national meaning also 
underlies, in respect of our world-wide colonization. 



XXIV Analysis of Ode 

VI. Sorrow now invites Music ; asserting her need 
to be the chiefest. The occasion being the celebra- 
tion of Purcell's genius, her complaint implies a call 
for some musical lament for his untimely death. 

VII. Music replies with a DIRGE for the dead 
artist ; offering no consolation beyond the expres- 
sion of woe. 

VIII. The chorus consoled, praise dead artists, 
and pronounce them happy and immortal. 

IX. A picture of the ideal world of dehght created 
by Art. 

X. The invocation repeated, with the idea of re- 
sponsibility of our colonization. 



ODE TO MUSIC 

Written for the Bicentenary Commemoration 

OF 

HENRY PURCELL 



ODE TO MUSIC 

Written for the Bicentenary Commemoration of 
Henry FurcelL 



I. 

Myriad-voiced Queen, Enchantress of the 
air, 

Bride of the life of man ! with tuneful reed, 

With string and horn and high-adoring quire 

Thy welcome we prepare. 

In silver-speaking mirrors of desire, 

In joyous ravishment of mystery draw thou 
near ; 

With heavenly echo of thoughts, that dream- 
ing lie 

Chain'd in unborn oblivion drear, 

Thy many-hearted grace restore 

Unto our isle our own to be. 

And make again our Graces three. 



30 Purcell Ode 



II. 



Turn, oh, return ! In merry England 
Foster'd thou wert with infant Liberty. 
Her hallowed oaks that stand 
With trembling leaves and giant heart 
Drinking in beauty from the summer moon. 
Her wildwood, once was dear to thee. 

There the birds with tiny art 
Earth's immemorial cradle-tune 
Warble at dawn to fern and fawn, 
In the budding thickets making merry; 
And for their love the primrose faint 
Floods the green shade with youthful scent. 

Come, thy jocund spring renew 
By hyacinthine lakes of blue : 
Thy beauty shall enchant the buxom May ; 
And all the summer months shall strew thy 

way. 
And rose and honeysuckle rear 
Their flowery screens, till under fruit and 

berry 
The tall brake groweth golden with the year. 



And other Poems 31 



III. 

Thee fair Poetry oft hath sought, 
Wandering lone in wayward thought, 
On level meads by gliding streams, 
When summer noon is full of dreams : 
And thy loved airs her soul invade, 
Haunting retired the willow shade. 

Or in some walled orchard nook 
She communes with her ancient book. 
Beneath the branches laden low ; 
While the high sun o'er bosom'd snow 
Smiteth all day the long hill-side, 
With ripening cornfields waving wide. 

There if thou linger all the year. 
No jar of man shall reach thine ear, 
Or sweetly come, as when the sound 
From hidden villages around, 
Threading the woody knolls, is borne 
Of bells that dong the Sabbath morn. 



32 Purcell Ode 



IV. 



I. 



The sea with melancholy war 
Moateth about our castled shore; 
His world-wide elemental moan 
Girdeth our lives with tragic zone. 

He, ere men dared his watery path, 
Fenced them aloof in wrath ; 
Their jealous brotherhoods 
Sund'ring with bitter floods ; 
Till science grew and skill, 
And their adventurous will 
Challenged his boundaries, and went free 
To know the round world, and the sea 
From midday night to midnight sun 
Binding all nations into one. 

II. 

Yet shall his storm and mastering wave 
Assure the empire to the brave ; 
And to his billowy bass belongs 
The music of our patriot songs, 



And other Poems 33 

When to the wind his ridges go 
In furious following, careering a-row, 
Lasht with hail and withering snow ; 
And ever undaunted hearts outride 
His rushing waters wide. 

III. 

But when the winds, fatigued or fled, 
Have left the drooping barks unsped, 
And nothing stirs his idle plain 
Save fire-breathed ships with silvery train, 
While lovingly his waves he layeth, 
And his slow heart in passion swells 
To the pale moon in heav'n that strayeth, 
And all his mighty music deep 
Whispers among the heaped shells, 
Or in dark caverns lies asleep, 
Then dreams of Peace invite, 
Haunting our shore with kisses light; 
Nay, even Love's Paphian Queen hath come 
Out of her long-retired home 
To show again her beauty bright, 
And twice or thrice in sight hath play'd 
Of a young lover unaffray'd, 
And all his verse immortal made. 

3 



34 Purcell Ode 



V. 



I. 

Love to Love calleth, 
Love unto Love replieth : 

From the ends of the earth, drawn by invisi- 
ble bands, 

Over the dawning and darkening lands, 
Love Cometh to Love; 

To the pangs of desire ; 
To the heart by courage and might 
Escaped from hell, 
From the torment of raging fire, 
From the sighs of the drowning main, 
From shipwreck of fear and pain, 
From the terror of night. 

II. 

All mankind by Love shall be banded 
To combat Evil, the many-handed ; 
For the spirit of man on beauty feedeth, 
The airy fancy he heedeth, 



And other Poems 



35 



He regardeth Truth in the heavenly height, 

In changeful pavilions of lovelinesss dight, 

The sovran sun that knows not the night; 

He loveth the beauty of earth, 

And the sweet birds' mirth ; 

And out of his heart there falleth 

A melody-making river 

Of passion, that runneth ever 

To the ends of the earth and crieth, 

That yearneth and calleth ; 

And Love from the heart of man 

To the heart of man replieth : 

On the wings of desire 

Love Cometh to Love. 



VL 



To me, to me, fair-hearted Goddess, come, 

To Sorrow come. 
Where by the grave I linger dumb ; 

With Sorrow bow thine head, 

For all my beauty is dead. 



^6 Purcell Ode 

Leave Freedom's vaunt and playful thought 

awhile ; 
Come with thine unimpassioned smile 
Of heavenly peace, and with thy fourfold choir 

Of fair, uncloying harmony, 
Unveil the palaces where man's desire 
Keepeth celestial solemnity. 

II. 

Lament, fair-hearted queen, lament with me ; 
For when thy seer died no song was sung, 
Nor for our heroes fall'n by land or sea 

Hath honor found a tongue, 
Nor aught of beauty for their tomb can frame 

Worthy their noble name. 
Let Mirth go bare ; make mute thy dancing 
string ; 

With thy majestic consolation 

Sweeten our suffering. 

Speak thou my woe, that from her pain 

My spirit arise to see again 

The Truth unknown that keeps our faith, 

The Beauty unseen that bates our breath, 

The heaven that doth our joy renew, 

And drinketh up our tears as dew. 



And other Poems 



37 



VII. 

DIRGE. 

Man born of desire 

Cometh out of the night, 

A wandering spark of fire, 

A lonely word of eternal thought, 

Echoing in chance and forgot. 

I. 

He seeth the sun, 
He calleth the stars by name. 
He saiuteth the flowers. 
Wonders of land and sea, 
The mountain towers 
Of ice and air 
He seeth, and calleth them fair. 

Then he hideth his face : — 
Whence he came to pass away 
Where all is forgot, 
Unmade, — lost for aye 
With the things that are not. 



38 Purcell Ode 

IL 

He striveth to know, 
To unravel the Mind 
That veileth in horror; 
He wills to adore ; 
In wisdom he walketh 
And loveth his kind ; 
His laboring breath 
Would keep evermore. 

Then he hideth his face: — 
Whence he came to pass away 
Where all is forgot, 
Unmade, — lost for aye 
With the things that are not. 

III. 

He dreameth of beauty, 
He seeks to create 
Fairer and fairer, 
To vanquish his fate ; 
No hindrance he. 
No curse will brook ; 
He maketh a law 
No ill shall be. 



And other Poems 39 

Then he hideth his face : — 
Whence he came to pass away 
Where all is forgot, 
Unmade, — lost for aye 
With the things that are not. 



VIIL 

Rejoice, ye dead, where'er your spirits dwell ; 
Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright. 
And that your names, remembered day and 

night, 
Live on the lips of those who love you well. 
'Tis ye that conquered have the powers of 
Hell 
Each with the special grace of your delight ; 
Ye are the world's creators, and by might 
Alone of heavenly love ye did excel. 

Now ye are starry names, 
Behind the sun ye climb, 
To light the glooms of time 
With deathless flames. 



40 PurcellOde 



IX. 



Open for me the gates of delight, 

The gates of the garden of man's desire ; 

Where spirits touched by heavenly fire 

Have planted the trees of life. 
Their branches in beauty are spread, 

Their fruit divine 
To the nations is given for bread 

And crushed into wine. 

To thee, O man, the sun his truth hath given ; 
The moon hath whispered in love her silvery 

dreams ; 
Night hath unlockt the starry heaven. 
The sea the trust of his streams ; 
And the rapture of woodland spring 

Is stayed in its flying, 

And Death cannot sting 

Its beauty undying. 

Fear and Pity discontinue 

Their aching beams in colors fine; 



And other Poems 41 

Pain and woe forego their might. 
After darkness thy leaping sight, 
After dumbness thy dancing sound, 
After fainting thy heavenly flight, 
After sorrow thy pleasure crowned : 
Oh, enter the garden of thy delight. 
Thy solace is found. 



X. 



To us, O Queen of sinless grace, 
Now at our prayer unveil thy face; 
Awake again thy beauty free ; 
Return and make our Graces three. 
And with our thronging strength to the ends 
of the earth 
Thy myriad-voiced loveliness go forth. 
To lead o'er all the world's wide ways 
God's everlasting praise. 
And every heart inspire 
With the joy of man in the beauty of Love's 
desire. 



42 PurcellOde 



THE FAIR BRASS. 

An effigy of brass, 
Trodden by careless feet 
Of worshippers that pass, 
Beautiful and complete, 

Lieth in the sombre aisle 
Of this old church unwreckt, 
And still from modern style 
Shielded by kind neglect. 

It shows a warrior armed : 
Across his iron breast 
His hands by death are charmed 
To leave his sword at rest, 

Wherewith he led his men 
O'er sea, and smote to hell 
The astonisht Saracen, 
Nor doubted he did well. 



And other Poems 43 

Would we could teach our sons 
His trust in face of doom, 
Or give our bravest ones 
A comparable tomb : 

Such as to look on shrives 
The heart of half its care, 
So in each line survives 
The spirit that made it fair; 

So fair the characters 
With which the dusky scroll 
That tells his tide stirs 
A requiem for his soul. 

Yet dearer far to me, 
And brave as he, are they 
Who fight by land and sea 
For England at this day; 

Whose vile memorials, 
In mournful marbles gilt. 
Deface the beauteous walls 
By growing glory built. 



44 PurcellOde 

Heirs of our antique shrines, 
Sires of our future fame, 
Whose starrv honor shines 
In many a noble name 

Across the deathful days, 
Linked in the brotherhood 
That loves our country's praise 
And lives for heavenly good. 



And other Poems 45 



NOVEMBER. 



I. 



The lonely season in lonely lands, when fled 
Are half the birds, and mists he low, and 

the sun 
Is rarely seen, nor strayeth far from his bed ; 
The short days pass unwelcomed one by one. 

Out by the ricks the mantled engine stands 
Crestfall'n, deserted, — for now all hands 
Are told to the plough, — and ere it is dawn 

appear 
The teams following and crossing far and 

near, 
As hour by hour they broaden the brown 

bands 
Of the striped fields ; and behind them firk 

and prance 
The heavy rooks, and daws gray-pated dance : 



46 PurcellOde 

Or awhile, surmounting a crest, against the 

sky 
Pictured a whole team stands, or now near 

by 
Above the lane they shout, lifting the share, 
By the trim hedgerow bloomed with purple 

air; 
Where, under the thorns, dead leaves in 

huddle lie 
Packed by the gales of Autumn, and in and 

out 
The small wrens glide 
With a happy note of cheer, 
And yellow amorets flutter above and about, 
Gay, familiar in fear. 



II. 

And now, if the night shall be cold, across 
the sky 

Linnets and twites, in small flocks helter- 
skelter. 

All the afternoon to the gardens fly, 

From thistle-pastures hurrying to gain the 
shelter 



And other Poems 47 

Of American rhododendron or cherry-laurel ; 
And here and there, near chilly setting of 

sun, 
In an isolated tree a congregation 
Of starlings chatter and chide, 
Thickset as summer leaves, in garrulous 

quarrel. 
Suddenly they hush as one, — 
The tree-top springs, — 
And off, with a whirr of wings, 
They fly by the score 
To the holly-thicket, and there with myriads 

more 
Dispute for the roosts ; and from the unseen 

nation 
A babel of tongues, like running water 

unceasing, 
Makes live the wood, the flocking cries 

increasing, 
Wrangling discordantly, incessantly. 
While falls the night on them self-occupied, — 
The long, dark night, that lengthens slow, 
Deepening with winter to starve grass and 

tree, 
And soon to bury in snow 



48 Purcell Ode 

The earth, that, sleeping 'neath her frozen 

stole. 
Shall dream a dream crept from the sunless 

pole 
Of how her end shall be. 



And other Poems 



49 



THE SOUTH WIND. 



The south wind rose at dusk of the winter 

day, 
The warm breath of the western sea 
Circling wrapped the isle with his cloak of 

cloud, 
And it now reached even to me, at dusk of 

the day, 
And moaned in the branches aloud : 
While here and there, in patches of dark 

space, 
A star shone forth from its heavenly place. 
As a spark that is borne in the smoky chase ; 
And, looking up, there fell on my face — 
Could it be drops of rain. 
Soft as the wind, that fell on my face? 
Gossamers light as threads of the summer 

dawn, 

4 



50 PurcellOde 

Sucked by the sun from midmost calms of 

the main, 
From groves of coral islands secretly drawn, 
O'er half the round of earth to be driven. 
Now to fall on my face 
In silky skeins spun from the mists of heaven. 



II. 

Who art thou, in wind and darkness and 

soft rain 
Thyself that robest, that bendest in sighing 

pines 
To whisper thy truth? that usest for signs 
A hurried glimpse of the moon, the glance 

of a star 
In the rifted sky? 
Who art thou, that with thee I 
Woo and am wooed? 

That, robing thyself in darkness and soft rain, 
Choosest my chosen solitude, 
Coming so far 
To tell thy secret again, 
As a mother her child on her folding arm. 
Of a winter night by a flickering fire, 



And other Poems 51 

Telleth the same tale o'er and o'er 

With gentle voice, and I never tire, 

So imperceptibly changeth thy charm, 

As Love on buried ecstasy buildeth his tower, 

Like as the stem that beareth the flower 

By trembling is knit to power. 

Ah ! long ago 

In thy first rapture I renounced my lot, 

The vanity, the despondency, and the woe, 

And seeking thee to know, 

Well was 't for me, and evermore 

I am thine, I know not what. 



III. 

For me thou seekest ever, me wondering 
a day 
In the eternal alternations, me 
Free for a stolen moment of chance 
To dream a beautiful dream 
In the everlasting dance 
Of speechless worlds, the unsearchable 

scheme, 
To me thou findest the way, 
Me and whomsoe'er 



52 Purcell Ode 

I have found my dream to share 
Still with thy charm encircling ; even to-night 
To me and my love in darkness and soft rain 
Under the sighing pines thou comest again, 
And staying our speech with mystery of 

delight, 
Of the kiss that I give a wonder thou makest, 
And the kiss that I take thou takest. 



And other Poems 53 



WINTER NIGHTFALL. 

The day begins to droop, — 

Its course is done; 
But nothing tells the place 

Of the setting sun. 

The hazy darkness deepens, 

And up the lane 
You may hear, but cannot see. 

The homing wain. 

An engine pants and hums 

In the farm hard by : 
Its lowering smoke is lost 

In the lowering sky. 

The soaking branches drip, 
And all night through 

The dropping will not cease 
In the avenue. 



54 PurcellOde 

A tall man there in the house 
Must keep his chair: 

He knows he will never again 
Breathe the spring air. 

His heart is worn with work; 

He is giddy and sick 
If he rise to go as far 

As the nearest rick. 

He thinks of his morn of life, 
His hale, strong years ; 

And braves as he may the night 
Of darkness and tears. 



ERRATA. 

Page 40, second line from bottom, for " discontinue." read 

" disentwine." 
Page 51, third line from top, for "thy," read "the." 



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